Jonathan Calder

Downing Street Downfalls: The Misadventures of Britain’s Prime Minister Since Thatcher by Mark Garnett Downing Street Downfalls: The Misadventures of Britain’s Prime Minister Since Thatcher Mark Garnett Agenda, 2025, £20 hbk It’s not a novelty...

As Garnett says:

"The 2016 referendum, and its consequences, accounted directly for Cameron and May; and while Johnson and Truss found means of self-sabotage, arguably neither would have earned the chance to showcase their ineptitude for leadership without Brexit."

My review from the new Liberator

Harold Shand klaxon...

“Chess helps me with so many other things, at school it helps with maths, art and music." What an amazing child.

He'll get over it.

The Joy of Six 1440 "The 'peace deal' that America is now attempting to force on Ukraine, is not like Neville Chamberlain’s betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich...

Trump's Ukraine deal is worse than the Munich betrayal; the "patriots" who hate Britain; floods aren't news any more; the lost world of Greater Manchester's newspapers; Gillian Tindall remembered; a new biography of Mark Twain

Man arrested over illegal waste ‘mountain’ by river in Oxfordshire A 39-year-old from the Guildford area is being questioned about fly-tipping in a field alongside the River Cherwell A man has been arrested in connection with the illegal dumping of a mountain of waste by a river in Oxfordshire. The 39-year-old, from the Guildford area, is being questioned after his arrest by Environment Agency (EA) officers. Continue reading...

Man arrested over illegal waste ‘mountain’ by river in Oxfordshire

Lord Bonkers' Diary: One of Violent Bonham Carter’s boys liberalengland.blogspot.com/2025/11/lord...

“How do you cover Trump at the BBC without fear right now?”

@jonsopel1.bsky.social and @lewisgoodall.com unpack the many pressures currently facing BBC journalists.

Bagworth Incline and the remains of one of the world's oldest railway buildings Steve from the What Once Was channel (like and subscribe, my pretties) writes on YouTube: Join me as I explore what’s left of the Bagworth I...

Built in the early 1830s as part of the Leicester & Swannington Railway, this incline control house once helped transport coal across Leicestershire using rope-worked, self-acting incline technology – long before modern locomotives took over.

when we say we want more streets to be pedestrianized, this is what we mean

The forgotten Shropshire tragedy that inspired The Mousetrap The death of 12-year-old Dennis O’Neill in 1945 shocked Britain and led Agatha Christie to write her famous play The Mousetrap

Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, on 25 November 1952.

Read about the real-life case that led her to write it. #AgathaChristie #TheMousetrap

Change in Reform rating between latest and previous poll from each pollster in recent polls:

YouGov -2
Opinium -1
Find Out Now -1
Focaldata -2
More in Common -1
Lord Ashcroft -3
Freshwater -3
JL Partners -1
Ipsos -1

This is starting to look like a trend...

The new Liberator has dropped! Download issue 432 free of charge from the magazine's website. liberatormagazine.org.uk/recent-issues/

When can you declare an emergency over?

The 5p “emergency” petrol tax cut was introduced in March 2022, to offset a spike in prices

They are now about 30p down on that month, & about 50p down on the absolute peak

Still can't quite believe that "I only said 'gas the Jews' in a non-hurtful way" was the strategy Nigel Farage opted to go for

200 Ansel Adams Photographs Expose the Rigors of Life in Japanese Internment Camps During WW II Images courtesy of the Library of Congress. Actor George Takei was once best known as Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu.

200 Ansel Adams Photographs Expose the Rigors of Life in Japanese Internment Camps During WW II

They shouldn't have made the last season of Lewis, Lewis.

The BBC's has responded in The Guardian that this was a routine editorial decision, but also that it was made on legal advice. Those two explanations don’t fit together. /1

London’s River: The Pool of London, London Transport travel poster, 1951, by John Minton.

Andy & Grayson

Brexit: “The most dishonest campaign in our history said it would save us £350m a week, but Brexit actually cost us £250m a day in 2025. That is why we have the highest taxes ever, that is why we have sky-high bills, that is why we have a cost of living crisis” @eddavey.libdems.org.uk

I guess it’s a compliment that the top story on BBC London’s TV/online output today is a direct lift of a month-old London Centric story? But once again the BBC is consistently the worst news outlet for actually remembering to credit others.

I’m pro ‘tourist taxes’ (they’re in effect across a lot of Europe and they’re small and you can often pay them without noticing). But they are the ultimate case of ‘raise taxes on someone else.’

His grandmother is an absolute 'nutcase.'

St Pancras afternoon.

🎶 We didn't start the shitshow 🎶

It's damn bad luck that Boris Johnson accidentally wiped 5000 covid-19-related WhatsApp messages from his mobile phone, because that might have shown us just how well he handled the pandemic.

Brilliant thecritic.co.uk/auntie-in-th...

The forgotten Shropshire tragedy that inspired The Mousetrap The death of 12-year-old Dennis O’Neill in 1945 shocked Britain and led Agatha Christie to write her famous play The Mousetrap

Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, on 25 November 1952.

Read about the real-life case that led her to write it. #AgathaChristie #TheMousetrap